American Cooking and Technique for Beginners and Intermediates

I call the classic, French action used to make many of the classic cuts with a chef’s knife Guillotine and Glide. But as far as I know (a) no one else does; and (b) there is no real name for it. And while we’re caveating, this technique is useful but it doesn’t work with every knife, nor is it the right way to cut everything.

Henri Paul Pellaprat Imparting Knowledge

At some point, I’ll have to make a video. In the meantime you’re stuck with mere, inadequate, prosaic words and the picture of the greatest cooking teacher ever frolicking with French women.

Here’s How (to begin before getting to Here’s How):The action starts with the grip. If you don’t know how to do a “soft pinch,” you should look at that post first.

Put something to cut on your board – something not to long, too high or too wide. Celery would be fine. When you start learning you don’t want to cut anything too long or too wide. So “block” your celery into strips about 5″ long and half a stalk wide. (When you get good, you can use very long strips; and if and/or when you’ve really got the claw mastered you can use very short sticks, but for now we roll with medium.) You’ll want a few dozen strips to have enough for practice.

You’ll be trying to make dice about 3/8″ wide. FWIW, that’s about “medium.”

After you’ve fabricated the strips, push them to the left side of your board (assuming you’re right handed – if you’re a lefty like me, you’ll just have to reverse everything).

Use your knife to push 8 or 10 into the center of the board. Use your left hand to gather them into a loose bundle. Orient them so they’re perpendicular to your knife. Gently tap the ends with the side of your knife so all the ends on the right side are even.

Hold the sticks with “claw” technique. (Make sure your fingers are tucked under, and that your thumb is out of the way, and not pointing towards where the knife will cut.) Make the bundle two or three sticks high – no more than three.

Orient the sticks so they’re perpendicular to the natural line your knife will take. If you’re using the approved stance, posture, and a straight wrist, that means your cutting board will be square to the counter, and your bundle will be square to the board. If you’re not doing all that stuff, just try and get the bundle 90* to whatever your line is without straining.

Hold the bundle at its left end, unless you can already do “cut and retreat” or are already practiced at using your knuckles as a guide. We’ll save those techniques for another post.

Here’s How (this time for real):The tip starts down, but not necessarily on the board. If it’s not on the board, the blade comes down in a push. (With something as low as celery that’s as soon as it is on the board, the cutter guillotines the knife, using the arc of the belly to make the edge traverse diagonally through the food. As the flat of the knife comes down on the board, the cutter slides the knife forward.

That’s it.

A lot of sturm und drang for something very simple if you ask me. But whose fault is that?

OK. Now that you know how, practice for a couple of months, then leave a comment on how your life has changed for the better.

Try a Little Perspective:
One of the desirable characteristics of this technique is that it’s more or less silent.

Another, is that it’s intuitive with a French profile chef’s knife. Intuitive after a forty or fifty hours of practice, anyway.

Yet another is that it’s not a universal technique – depending on the type of knife and what you’re trying to do. It’s not good without a chef’s knife (although a santoku might do it); and less good with a German profile than a French.

It’s very good for cutting sticks (alumette, batonet, julienne, etc.,) and dice (medium, fine, brunoise) but not particularly effective for blocking or planking. Those things work better with more “push cut,” and some other things work better just by dragging the tip through, or “popping” the tip the way reality TV cheftestants speed-chop a cucumber.

Rather obviously, you have to adapt your technique to what you’re doing and with you’re using to do it.

Less obviously, you also have to adapt to where you’re doing it. For instance, if you’re working in a kitchen with a crapulous chef, silence is golden. Rather obviously, you have to adapt your technique to what you’re doing and with you’re using to do it. Less obviously, you also have to adapt to where you’re doing it. For instance, if you’re working in a kitchen with a crapulous chef, silence is golden. Silence is golden anyway. How can I listen to Scarlatti if you’re tap, tap, tapping? Right, Scarlatti AND silence is golden.

What We’ve Been Talking About:

WHO IS BDL, Boar D. Laze, or whatever the hell his name is?

A Brief Biography:

Ex-Navy Seal; Ex-Victoria’s Secret model; Turned down a three-way with Sophia Loren and the young Marlene Dietrich (as in the Blue Angel) because had other plans; Knows who killed everyone in The Big Sleep, and why; Chaired the work-group which invented Time, Space, Gravity, Fire and Holiday Sweaters; Prefers Dickel to Jack.

What is Cook Food Good?

What’s this site about? It’s about a lot of things
Forcing myself to work out issues relating to writing a cookbook: COOK FOOD GOOD: American Cooking and Technique for Beginners and Intermediates.
Getting feedback on my work from you.
Discussions on basic and not-so-basic techniques. The recipes here are very technique driven. Similarly, the idea behind the book is to be far more about the how than the what – with the goal of teaching you to create your own recipes and tweak other people’s, confidently and successfully.
How to cook better, as it relates to you (and me too). That is, taking a beginner or advanced beginner to good, restaurant quality. Mostly this will be (more or less) French technique and (more or less) American food. But only mostly, more or less.
Recipes for this, that and the other.
Knives and all about sharpening them (which have somehow become a subject on which I frequently get asked for advice): How to choose and how to use.
The first Cook Food Good Blog was hosted by the website, Chef Talk. However, CT, removed its blog section. If you’re interested in bad writing, poor punctuation and ancient history, you’ll find the old CT posts archived here. One thing about posting on CT, was that it acted as a sort of language and attitude super-ego. Don’t count on it here. This is naked id.